{"id":276,"date":"2013-01-17T04:24:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/?p=276"},"modified":"2013-01-17T04:24:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T10:24:11","slug":"276","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/2013\/01\/17\/276\/","title":{"rendered":"Arminian Perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reblogged From: Arminian Perspectives<\/a><\/p>\n

An Arminian Response to C. Michael Patton\u2019s \u201cThe Irrationality of Calvinism\u201d
\nPart 1: The Set Up<\/strong>
\nPosted on January 16, 2013 by kangaroodort<\/p>\n

C.Michael Patton is the President of Credo House<\/a>.\u00a0 He has now written two separate and similar posts defending the \u201cirrationality\u201d of Calvinism as actually being a strength of the system, specifically over and above Arminianism. In this newest post<\/a>, Mr. Patton levels many unfair and unfounded criticisms against Arminian theology and \u201cArminians\u201d in general, \u00a0betraying a basic lack of understanding concerning what Arminians believe and why they believe it.\u00a0 For this reason, an Arminian response seemed appropriate in order to set the record straight.\u00a0 This response will interact with the entirety of C. Michael Patton\u2019s post, which would make for a very long interaction as a single post.\u00a0 For that reason, the response will be broken into parts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Part 1:\u00a0<\/b>The Set Up<\/b><\/p>\n

Patton: I am a child of Western thought. Therefore I like to figure things out. If possible, I like to figure it\u00a0all<\/i>\u00a0out. It causes some problems sometimes with me and God and I need to deal with it better. Sometimes I only really follow or engage with God when I\u00a0get it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>When things make sense to me, it eases my intellectual anxiety and engages my will. Who?, What?, Where?, How?, and, especially,<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t like the way this starts out.\u00a0 It makes it seem like logic and wanting to figure things out is just a \u201cwestern\u201d thing.\u00a0 That is not the case at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty basic to human nature and our desire to understand and make sense of reality and the world we live in.\u00a0 This desire goes far beyond just questions of theology, and it is not limited to \u201cwestern thought\u201d in the least.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The reason for all of Mr. Patton\u2019s set up now seems rather clear.\u00a0 It is to create the idea that it is unreasonable to reject contradictions and irrationality in a theological system, namely (and only) Calvinism, of course.\u00a0 That\u2019s right, Mr. Patton has just introduced a new so called \u201ctension\u201d into the mix, the wild claim that it is irrational to have a problem with irrationality.\u00a0 Of course, this is circular and self-defeating, just as the main thrust of Mr. Patton\u2019s entire post.\u00a0 Not only that, we see another slam on \u201cwestern thought.\u201d\u00a0 Why does Mr. Patton keep going back to that?\u00a0 The answer seems to be that if he can convince his readers that their problems with irrationalities in Calvinism are just an unfortunate and invalid symptom of less sophisticated \u201cwestern thought\u201d, his readers will be more likely to feel OK about embracing such irrational \u201ctensions\u201d in Calvinism.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

So the argument is now framed to be more of an issue of Calvinism versus flawed Western or American thinking, rather than Biblical truth.\u00a0 Indeed, Mr. Patton will eventually spin things to such an extent as to potentially convince his readers that those who embrace such irrationalities (\u201ctensions\u201d) are nobler and just more honest with the Bible than those who do not (namely Arminians, of course).<\/p>\n

Patton: I am a Calvinist. It is funny. I often hear people talk about Calvinism as a closed box system that forces everything to fall in line, even when we have to sacrifice biblical integrity to do so. I often hear the accusation that Calvinism is a system that makes rationality its primary goal. And this is often true.\u00a0Sometimes<\/i>\u00a0Calvinists do attempt to fit things into a system and engage in questionable logic driven hermeneutics to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An admission that should not be soon forgotten.\u00a0 It is important to note here what Mr. Patton apparently means, though it is not very \u201capparent\u201d from what he says here.\u00a0 Mr. Patton speaks about Calvinism being a \u201cclosed system\u201d because Calvinists often pride themselves on the logic of that \u201csystem.\u201d\u00a0 Indeed, many people seem to embrace Calvinism because the logic or coherence of the \u201csystem\u201d appeals to them, or seems compelling.<\/strong>\u00a0 Patton finds this ironic since he embraces Calvinism because it has the same \u201ctensions\u201d (\u201capparent\u201d inconsistencies, or irrationalities) that he sees in the Bible.\u00a0 So it is not coherence that attracts Mr. Patton to Calvinism, but \u201capparent\u201d incoherence.<\/p>\n

If Mr. Patton\u2019s post were simply about explaining why he personally holds to Calvinism and finds it attractive, or how he finds it ironic that people are drawn to Calvinism based on the supposed logic of the system when he embraces it for its \u201cirrationality\u201d, that would all be well and good, but Mr. Patton does more than that.\u00a0 He attacks Arminianism in the process, and unfairly so.\u00a0 That is why this response seemed necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reblogged From: Arminian Perspectives An Arminian Response to C. Michael Patton\u2019s \u201cThe Irrationality of Calvinism\u201d Part 1: The Set Up Posted on January 16, 2013 by kangaroodort C.Michael Patton is the President of Credo House.\u00a0 He has now written two separate and similar posts defending the \u201cirrationality\u201d of Calvinism as actually being a strength of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-from-other-blogs","tag-posts-from-other-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/the-jesus-realm.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}